


Small Things

by alexygalaxy



Series: Widojest Week 2019 [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, F/M, Gore, Heavy Angst, Nightmares, as much as i hurt u i also feed u the good happy ending kush, but i promise, but like. its still not pretty to read, don't let the archive warnings scare u too much all the bad stuff is just a dream, so please do take care, uhh spoilers thru ep 55
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexygalaxy/pseuds/alexygalaxy
Summary: Jester has a nightmare which shakes her to her core, a conversation with Caleb, and a dream which turns out much better than the first.





	Small Things

**Author's Note:**

> here it is baby .... widojest week day 6: fire & ice
> 
> another warning just bc i don't wanna freak anyone out: i did get kinda dark writing this fic, so please read the tags/warnings!!!! in terms of graphic-ness, i would say its about comparable to the level of gore matt uses to describe fights in-show, maybe a little nastier? so gauge for yourself if that's too much for you, feel no obligation to read if it'll make you feel bad
> 
> additionally, this is a sister fic to [yesterday's prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781662) so if you haven't read that, you might want to, just to get some context for their conversation.
> 
> anyways, enjoy!!

The ground is shaking. 

The earth beneath Jester’s feet shudders and crumbles as she is tossed onto her face, breath knocked from her chest and replaced with the bitter taste of dirt. She presses to the ground as heat washes over her, air shimmering from the detonation of the fireball. A distinctive scream echoes from behind Jester and she hears the sound of a small body hitting the ground next to her. She turns her head to the side, and almost retches. 

Nott’s form is crumpled into the dirt, facedown. Her crossbow lays several feet away from her, tossed from the charred stump that was once her arm. Blood is beginning to soak into the earth to form a disgusting, black soup, oozing from beneath her body.

No, not body. Corpse. She’s not breathing. 

Jester screams, muffled by the mud still filling her mouth from her own fall. She reaches a hand towards the limp form. She can’t even touch Nott, gods damn it. Her healing spells are all touch-based, she just needs to get there and maybe, maybe, she can do something about this. She attempts to lift herself up and immediately collapses, face slamming back into the ground.

“Stop it!” Beau’s voice cuts through the air, shaky and wavering. “Fucking STOP IT! I’m not losing anyone else, and that includes you.” The soft thud of her fist connecting with flesh hits Jester’s ears, followed by a few footsteps staggering backwards.

Jester raises her head off the ground, watching Yasha sprint to join Beau in the fray. Yasha grunts as she swings her sword, only to be met with a shuddering impact from an arcane shield. She raises it again, blade taking a wild arc and missing its target entirely. She pants heavily, blood streaming from a gash across her forehead, fury in her eyes.

A wail echoes far to her left, pained and filled with evil. The creature they’re fighting seems like it might finally be hurting. Something slams into the wall and someone, either Fjord or Caduceus, makes a sound that makes Jester want to wretch again. 

The sound cuts off far too quickly. The thing must have struck a second time, claws sinking somewhere deadly. Jester does heave then, spilling rancid vomit onto the ground in front of her. The smell mixes with terribly with whatever else is in the air. 

Heat rips through her side, arcing across her back and engulfing her torso. She can’t tell whether she’s blinded by the pain, or the flames now surrounding her, or both, but she can’t fucking see. She’s sure she’s screaming, even though she can’t hear anything. She drags herself forwards, out of the fire, feet scrabbling to push at the dirt behind her and arms struggling to hold her weight. She’s not sure how she’s still going. 

Flames crackle behind her, a wall of fire splitting her from whatever remains of her party. Judging by the overwhelming scent of burnt flesh which now fills her nose, it isn’t much. She struggles to her feet, knees about to buckle and hair plastered to her face with something. A touch of fingertips to her forehead confirms that it’s blood. She doesn’t know whose. 

“Haven’t you done enough?” Jester shrieks at the form in front of her. 

It turns over its shoulder to look at her, hands pulling away from the wall of flame that had sprouted just inches in front of them. It laughs, a sound that Jester normally adores, but now it makes her want to claw at her head until she goes deaf. It reaches into its coat, digging in its pockets for components.

“Please!” she yells, hand grabbing desperately at the symbol of the Traveler tied to her waist. “Snap out of it, please, I don’t want to have to hurt you, Caleb.”

Another howl echoes from beyond the wall of flame. It drives through Jester like a jagged blade, terrifying and cold, and she prays it means the thing has fallen. Based off the pained cry of “CADUCEUS!” that follows shortly after, it did not fall without cost. Still, Jester finds a shred of hope in the fear. There’s still someone across the flames who is on her side. 

As if on cue, Beau steps through the fire. She looks terrible - skin blistering from the heat, black char smeared across the blue of her robes, knuckles split open and dripping blood, face screwed up in rage - and it’s the most beautiful thing Jester has ever seen. 

“You have always been a pain, Beauregard,” Caleb says, spitting malice. He pulls his hand out of his pocket, small grey rock grasped in it. He mutters a few words and a green ray emits from the rock, arcing a few short inches to connect with Beau’s chest, and then Beau’s chest is no longer there.  _ Beau _ is no longer there. 

Whatever this thing was that took Caleb’s mind is still gripping him from beyond the grave, and Jester is alone with it.

She begins to scream, sound rising from her gut and streaming out her lips, surprising her with its ferocity. The temperature drops dramatically as she grips her holy symbol for dear life. She lifts her free hand in front of her, ice crystal forming on her skin. She swipes it down, pulling her fingers into a fist, shattering the ice that had covered her joints, and calling to the Traveler for his power.

Shards of ice come streaking down from above her head. Some hiss as they strike the wall of fire, evaporating on impact but lowering its height to knee level. The rest direct themselves towards Caleb, showering around him, driving into either the ground around his feet or his body. 

They pierce through his skin, several sticking out of his stomach like a gruesome pincushion. Others still embed into his outstretched arms, and Jester wonders if this is what he looked like during Trent’s experiments with the crystals. A large piece slams into his shoulder, jerking his whole torso back and nearly throwing him off balance. As he struggles to right himself, a firebolt whizzes past Jester’s ear, only barely missing her. 

“Stop, Caleb, before I hurt you more,” Jester spits, words cold as the air around her. “I’m giving you a chance, but this is the last one.”

A second firebolt smacks Jester straight in the gut, and something bloodthirsty inside of her is loosed. Another shower of ice pelts from the ceiling, descending faster than the last round. They strike true, battering Caleb away from her. One shard plunges through his sternum, crimson already staining the base. 

He looks up at her, snarling. His brow is not furrowed like it normally is, and his typically hesitant eyes are open wide, burning with calculated fury and the same survival instinct pulsing through Jester. They hone in on her, the only member of the Mighty Nein left standing in his way. His eyes are so alive, in a way that Jester has never seen. It terrifies her to her very core. 

A shard of ice shoots through one of them, burying itself deep in Caleb’s eye socket and sending his head reeling back from the impact. 

His hands grasp at his face, slipping as he claws at the ice, attempting to wrench it out. He falls to his knees, coughing blood that spatters onto the icicle in his chest. It drips down onto his stomach, dark red and goopy, moving slower than normal because it is already starting to freeze. Caleb collapses forward onto the ground, pushing the shards even further into his chest. A few of them burst through his back, creating lumps under his coat that quickly darken with a mix of blood and melted water. He doesn’t get back up.

Jester rushes towards him, hobbling from her own injuries. She drops besides Caleb’s body, using what little strength she retains to turn his body over. He is breathing, barely, chest shuddering as it continues to drain red around the entry wounds of the icicles. She shakes his shoulders, muttering to herself,  _ come on, come on, come ON Caleb, not you too _ . His eyes -  _ eye _ flutters open. Jester pulls back instinctively, hand falling to her holy symbol. But the way he looks at her is familiar, comforting even. Whatever grip the thing had on its mind has been knocked away. 

Caleb is Caleb again, and he’s dying.

Jester presses her hand to his chest, aiming for a spot that doesn’t have ice embedded in it. She screws her eyes shut, begging for the Traveler to give her something, anything. It doesn’t have to be a lot, just enough to keep Caleb from bleeding out on this cursed cavern floor.

Something.  _ Anything _ .

“Do not bother,” Caleb rasps, answering Jester before she even has the chance to admit that the Traveler is not with her. “Do not bother, Jester.”

“What the fuck do you  _ mean _ , don’t bother?” She says, anger edging back into her voice. “Of course I’m going to bother, Caleb, I did this to you and I’m going to undo it.”

“Nein, you are not. If you had any magic left in you, you would have cast something by now. But you don’t have any, do you?” 

Jester looks at him in pained silence.

“I thought so.” Caleb coughs again, blood splattering across both him and Jester. 

“I can still do something, there’s a medic’s kit in the haversack, let me just -”

Caleb cuts her off. “Even if you did have magic still, I would say the same thing.”

“Shut up, Caleb.”

“I would.”

“Shut UP!” Jester chucks the haversack away, medic’s kit apparently absent. She would smack Caleb, if she wasn’t worried about dealing his final blow. “Stop fucking saying that, just stop, okay? I hurt you.  _ I _ hurt you. I nearly killed you, and now I’m fixing it, so just shut up and let me stabilize you so I can apologize for trying to murder you.”

“Why?”

“Why? Are you seriously fucking asking me why I feel bad about this?”

“It was justified, Jester. Look at what I did.” He gestures about the cavern, drawing Jester’s eye to the corpses of her friends littered about the room. Nott and Yasha lying facedown, blackened with ash. Fjord, slumped against the wall with a gash spilling his entire stomach down his front. Caduceus, sans head. Beau’s staff, fallen to the ground near where she had stood before disintegrating. 

“You were mind controlled, Caleb. It was that  _ thing _ that did it. You can’t blame yourself.”

He laughs, blood gurgling in his mouth. “It does not matter what I  _ meant _ to do, I killed them. And these are hardly the first innocents I have brought to their dooms. I do not know how many lives I have ended, with or without mind control. I have more than enough reason for blame.”

“What, do you want me to tell you you’re a terrible person and I hate you?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you, I’m not doing that.”

“Not even as my dying wish? Jester, you are a cruel woman.”

“You’re not fucking dying!” She grabs a fistful of Caleb’s shirt and tugs at it, noticing too late the wince that comes across his face as she agitates the ice wounds. The shards are beginning to melt, and blood is pouring out quicker, covering her hands. It’s so red; even against the blue of her skin, it’s so fucking red. “You’re not dying, Caleb. I’m going to fix this, I’m going to figure something out, I’m … I’ll …”

“Jester, do me a favor, would you?” Caleb’s breath is stuttering now, uneven and shallow.

“What?” 

“Do not feel bad about me. I am certainly not upset about it. I got what I deserved.” He smiles a bit, blood still dripping from between his lips.

“Stop saying that! You don’t deserve to die Caleb, you don’t, and you’re not going to die anyways, so it doesn’t matter, but if you were, you wouldn’t deserve it, okay?” Jester has stopped yelling, instead choosing to whisper her pleas at Caleb; maybe making her words softer will make him more receptive to them.

Caleb’s voice is also noticeably quieter as he answers her, though it seems less of a choice and more of a sign of his failing strength. “Repeating lies does not make them truer, Lavorre.”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it,” Jester wails, digging her hands further into Caleb’s shirt, tearing at the fabric helplessly. “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop, stop, stop, stop, st -”

Caleb says nothing, letting Jester shake him back and forth with utter fury at the hopelessness of the situation she finds herself in. He coughs again, blood catching in his throat and staying there. He doesn’t have enough breath left to force it out. He goes limp in Jester’s grasp.

She wakes up crying. 

* * *

_ “ _ _ You were there.” _

_ “In your dream?” _

_ “Yeah.”  _

_ “Sorry.” _

_ “You don’t even know what you were doing in it, Caleb. It might’ve been something really kind or heroic.” _

_ “I just assumed.” _

_ “You were charmed. You were charmed and I was trying to get you out of it. But it - it didn’t work. I hurt you.” _

_ “Oh.”  _

_ “I hurt you, Caleb. I hurt you and I -” _

_ “It’s okay. Just a dream.” _

_ “I know, it was but it - I - what - what if I really do? What if I hurt you for real? What if I hurt you and you hate me?” _

_ “Jester Lavorre, I assure you, hate is not a feeling I plan on having about you, no matter what you do to me.” _

She should’ve known he’d say something like that. 

He didn’t say it because he’d been trying to flirt with her (although it’s possible that he was doing that, Jester had been getting less and less subtle with him, and she could swear that he had flirted back like, four times). He said it because he really, truly believed that he deserved the harm that came to him. He almost desired it. Actually, fuck almost, he  _ did _ desire it.

That was what made Jester feel so utterly hopeless. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes to stave off the tears she knew were imminent.

She liked Caleb, in a “they’re adventuring partners first and foremost but if they held hands or kissed or something when no monsters were around she would probably definitely enjoy that” kind of way. She suspected that he felt somewhat similarly back. But every time she got close to thinking that they could actually  _ be _ something, he went and reminded her that he would put practically anyone above himself, and Jester found herself at a loss.

How do you show love to someone who refuses to believe that they are worthy of it? How do you give your heart to someone who can barely take care of their own? 

Jester was already bad enough at keeping their party alive, as her nightmare had so kindly reminded her, without Caleb running off to sacrifice himself because he and his martyr complex had decided that having a girl like him back was too much happiness to handle. She sighed. There were so many things for her to try and fix. The images of her friends dead bodies flashed through her mind again. Jester didn’t think she was very good at fixing things.

_ “I just worry about you guys. A lot. I’m supposed to be a healer, Caleb, but everyone keeps nearly dying anyways. Or actually dying. I don’t - I don’t want to lose anyone else. I only have one diamond left.” _

_ “Jester, you  _ are _ a healer. And we are also a lot stronger now than we used to be. And I know I am a weak little string bean, but even I have some meat to my bones. We fight hard fights, yes, but we can handle ourselves. You are a very capable healer, and we have Caduceus now, too. It would take quite a bit to lose one of us. Don’t worry too much.” _

Jester rolled over then, getting the first good look at Caleb she had since waking up. He was facing her, his hair drooping in his face, nearly hiding his eyes. She couldn’t see color with her darkvision, but she knew  _ exactly _ what shade of orange and blue they were, and just how well they complemented each other. A smile ghosted across his lips as he talked. It was that smile he made whenever he thought she wasn’t looking; the one that would appear in moments of genuine contentment or joy before he remembered that he wasn’t allowing himself good things. 

Jester liked that smile. It was small, yes, but her Mama always told her that love hides in small things. 

_ “I’ll try, but it’s going to be pretty hard to keep me from worrying if you keep shivering like that all night.” _

Small things, Jester told herself. That’s how you love someone who is still scared of love. 

Small things, like sharing the blankets. Small things, like throwing your arms around them so that they know they always have a place to run, other than away. Small things, like laying your head on their chest at night, and making sure that they fall asleep. Small things, like accidentally falling asleep first, because you feel so comfortable and safe around them. Lots and lots of small things; they all add up. 

* * *

The ground is shaking. 

The earth beneath Jester’s feet shudders and crumbles as she is tossed onto her face, breath knocked from her chest and replaced with the bitter taste of dirt. She presses to the ground as heat washes over her, air shimmering from the detonation of the fireball. A distinctive scream echoes from behind Jester and she hears the sound of a small body hitting the ground next to her. She turns her head to the side, and almost retches. 

Nott’s form is crumpled into the dirt, facedown. Her crossbow lays several feet away from her, tossed from the charred stump that was once her arm. Blood is beginning to soak into the earth to form a disgusting, black soup, oozing from beneath her body.

But, Jester realizes with relief, she’s still breathing.

Jester crawls forward on her stomach a few feet, stretching an arm towards Nott, and passing her a bit of healing energy. It was not much, but Jester was low on spells and there were still other things to fix. She or Caduceus would have to come back to Nott later. 

She forces herself onto her arms, then into a crouch, then to standing. She glances around the room. To one side is the thing, flailing in the corner between Fjord and Caduceus; to the other is Caleb, smoke rising off his fingertips. Next to her are Beau and Yasha, shellshocked, unsure of which direction to go.

“Go help Cad and Fjord,” Jester shouts to them, beginning to move, “I’ve got Caleb.”

Yasha nods and heads off without another word. Beau shoots Jester a worried glance, watching her run for a moment before she turns tail and follows Yasha. 

“Caleb!” Jester screeches, causing his head to whip towards her. He doesn’t say anything, but he smiles, and it looks so very wrong. 

He draws his hands through the air, tracing a sigil before throwing them apart. Jester has seen this before, on Avantika’s ship and in the well below Asarius. She lurches forwards, managing to escape most of the damage as the wall of flames licks at her heels. The room is split in two, the battle with the creature raging heard - but unseen - on one side, and Jester caged in with Caleb on the other. 

Jester squeezes the symbol at her hip and begs the Traveller to give her his power. Caleb is staring her down, gaze violent and murderous, as she rushes towards him. Jester feels the room grow cold around her, and the ice beginning to creep up her arms. She stares back at Caleb as she approaches. Thirty feet, twenty feet, ten, five, none.

Caleb’s hands are out in front of him again, twisting their way through another spell, when Jester seizes them with her own. Steam hisses and billows as the ice encasing her palms hits Caleb’s fire-hot skin. He tries to pull his hands back, but he is a weak string bean and Jester is determined. She locks her fingers around his and refuses to let go. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, Caleb,” she tells him through gritted teeth, “But I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else either.”

He doesn’t answer her, he just tries to pull away again. He yanks his hand back, but the ice has already begun to spread from Jester to him, encasing his wrist in frozen crystal and keeping his hand locked with hers. The other hand is the exact same; he is caught in Jester’s grip.

From beyond the flames, the creature is screeching horribly, wounded and terrified, as fighters surround it. Jester thinks she can make out the thunk of Yasha’s sword, the hum of Caduceus’s insects, Fjord’s cry of “Eldritch blast!”, and Beau’s grunts as she brings her fists into some part of the beast.    


“I don’t want to hurt you, I’m not  _ going _ to hurt you. We’re going to find a way to break this spell,” Jester says to Caleb as the ice begins to crawl further up both of their arms.

“Let go of me,” he spits, jerking his shoulders violently but unable to pull out of the frozen trap. He tries to kick at Jester, but she easily steps out of the way. Gods damn it, he is useless without his hands.

“I’m not going to do that, Caleb,” Jester returns, tightening her grip inside the ice and sending yet another surge of the crystal up both their arms, covering them both to the shoulder. She hopes that thing dies soon. She doesn’t know how long she can keep this up. 

“Let go, let GO!” Caleb shouts with ferocity, hair tossing as he flails wildly. He tries to back up only to find that the ice has begun to spread over the ground as well, encasing both his and Jester’s feet. 

“NO!” Jester shouts back, matching his level of anger. “You’re not going to hurt anyone, and no one is going to hurt you. You’re safe like this, Caleb, we’re all safe like this, until we can get that thing out of your mind.”

Caleb doesn’t answer her, just stares her down like an angry dog caught on a leash. Jester stares back, trying her hardest to look equally terrifying. The ice keeps rising, finally capping off near their knees. They stay locked like this, hand to hand and eye to eye, for what seems like an eternity.

They stay like that long enough for the wall of fire to flicker away to ash. They stay like that long enough for the creature to let out its death howl. Jester doesn’t see it go down, but she feels the cavern floor shudder as it falls. They stay like that long enough for the rest of the Mighty Nein to wander over to the figures of Caleb and Jester frozen together at arm’s length. 

No one asks Jester what’s going on. The grimace on Caleb’s face and the sweat forming on Jester’s furrowed brow as she struggles to hold the spell tells the rest of the group everything they need to know. Beau heads back over to the creature to check if it’s really dead, because if it is, shouldn’t Caleb be un-charmed now?

Jester is panting, and the ice on the ground between their feet is beginning to turn to slush. The rest of the Nein stand in a circle around them, weapons drawn and spells held, readied for what might happen when Jester gives out. 

_ Come on, come on, come ON Caleb, _ she thinks. She knows he’s in there, somewhere, and she just has to hold out until he comes back to her. It’s taking an eternity.

Caleb shakes his head, blinking. His eyebrows pull up in surprise, and the fury drains out of his face. Jester lets the spell drop, and the ice begins to melt at hyperspeed, turning to puddles which soak their arms and feet in a few seconds. The rest of the Nein slowly lower their weapons as they realize Caleb isn’t making a move for her.

Jester sinks to her knees, exhausted and relieved, relinquishing her hold on Caleb. He’s safe, thank god. He’s safe, everyone is safe, she kept them all safe. One of her hands drops to the ground in front of her, but the other remains in the air above. She looks up, wondering why it won’t come down.    


Oh. Caleb is still holding it.

He crouches down to Jester’s eye level, keeping their fingers intertwined. “Jester,” he says, voice low and filled with gratitude. He squeezes her hand as he talks. “You showed me mercy I did not deserve, but I thank you for it anyways.”

Jester is still struggling to catch her breath, so she doesn’t answer him. She lifts her head to meet his gaze. It is soft, and kind, and she will forever owe the Traveller for giving her the power to save the man behind it. 

Caleb holds out his other hand to her, wordlessly offering to help her up. She takes it, stepping to her feet with his aid. The rest of the Nein rush in, surrounding the two of them in a mess of arms. They hold each other for a good long while. They lived, they all lived, and they are relishing in it.

Eventually, the group makes their way out of the cavern, picking up their dropped weapons as they go. Caleb hasn’t unlaced his and Jester’s fingers yet. It’s a small thing, she knows, but then again, love hides in small things. She’ll take it, she thinks. He is warm in her grasp.

She wakes up holding Caleb’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> bonus paragraph i really liked but kept cutting bc i couldn't get too into jester's healing insecurities without breaking the flow of the story:
> 
> Did the Mighty Nein think that Jester knew what she was doing? That she walked into every battle confident, and not terrified that she or someone else wouldn’t be walking out of it? Hilarious, she thought, and fought the urge to cackle. She was just a girl, with a little symbol tied to her waist, and when the Traveler’s power was gone and done with, she was just a girl.
> 
> anyways, thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed!! as always, kudos/comments are appreciated if you feel so inclined, and you're always welcome to check out my tumblr at cadykeus-clay!!


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